


A Curse of Blood and Ashes

by joonfired



Series: A Cursed Continuation [2]
Category: Cursed (TV 2020)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BAMF Nimue (Cursed), Blood and Violence, Canon Rewrite, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, Excalibur, F/F, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Fey Fire, Gen, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I take canon and play with it, I take ideas and run with them, Magic, Merlin is a drunk little shit, Old Gods, Other, Past Child Abuse, Past Torture, Post-Canon, Redemption, Religious Fanaticism, Religious Guilt, Scars, Sexual Tension, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Swords & Sorcery, Uther is a spoiled brat but I love him okay, War, faerie lore, have some Ash Folk back story because I am curious, tropes galore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:35:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25550653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joonfired/pseuds/joonfired
Summary: Nimue falls, Lancelot rises, and Merlin plots.A continuation of the Cursed story.
Relationships: Merlin & Nimue (Cursed), Morgana | Igraine & Merlin (Cursed), Morgana | Igraine & Nimue (Cursed), Morgana | Igraine & Uther Pendragon (Cursed), Morgana | Igraine (Cursed) & The Cailleach, Nimue/The Weeping Monk | Lancelot (Cursed), Sister Iris (Cursed) & Insanity, Squirrel | Percival & The Weeping Monk | Lancelot (Cursed), Uther Pendragon & Merlin (Cursed)
Series: A Cursed Continuation [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1867822
Comments: 83
Kudos: 137





	1. — from fire unto water —

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [To Kill Death](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25536157) by [joonfired](https://archiveofourown.org/users/joonfired/pseuds/joonfired). 



> I'm but a simple person who craves complicated relationships and angsty slowburns ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> also I can't stop thinking about this damn show

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ends turn into beginnings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it took me forEVER to get this chapter & story beginning just perfect w o w and you have the wild insanity that is Sister Iris to thank for that

The fire inside Sister Iris burns fierce and holy.

She has followed the Wolf-Blood Witch from the stolen city to the false-king’s camp, leaving a path strewn with corpses behind her. Her hands are red with Fey blood and the scent of it floods her nostrils as she breathes deep and calls to God for strength in her mission. She is ready to feel His smile upon her for purging these evil creatures from His good earth.

But He does not answer . . . for the witch still lives.

Iris chases after them—the witch and her devilish companions, the profane wizard and a monster wrapped in the skin of a girl—as they flee from cleansing wrath of the Paladins. They run through the woods and into the mountains, slow and weak where Iris is strong. They are cursed, but she is driven by divine justice. They cannot escape her.

Where the Brothers have failed, she will prevail. And the Church will recognize their mistake and see the holy warrior they had shunned from their ranks. 

“I will do it, Lord,” she promises, bow gripped tight in her hand. “I will not fail you this time, I swear.”

She reaches them as they start to cross a narrow bridge set high in the mountains. She sets an arrow to the string, but the arrow rattles loud against the grip and alerts them of her presence.

“Iris?” the witch says, peering at her through the darkness as Iris draws the bowstring.

“Nimue, watch out!” the girl-shaped monster screams too-late as the arrow flies true.

The witch raises her heathen sword as she stumbles back under the impact as the arrow plants deep in her shoulder.

“Iris, what are you doing?” she asks, clearly blind to the knowledge that this is an avenging angel of the Lord that stands against her. “Why . . . ?”

Iris does not listen to her. She does not waver nor worry, even as the witch approaches her. She stands firm and reaches for another arrow that brings the witch to her knees.

“Burn in hell,  _ demon _ ,” Iris hisses.

The witch does not reply. Her sword falls with a clatter as she plucks at the fletched shaft protruding from her sternum . . . and then looks at Iris. But there is no hatred or fear in her gaze; there is only confusion and pity—

—and Iris smiles as the witch falls into the churning darkness below.

“I did it,” she tells God. She howls her triumph at the remaining demons before her, “ _ I did it! _ ”

Foul chants rise against her ears as the wizard retrieves the fallen sword. Unnatural storm clouds gather to darken the skies with Fey wrath and lightning slices down to strike the Paladins that swarm after the now-slain witch.

Sister Iris charges across the bridge, bloodied dagger in her fist to strike true and holy. But she is flung back by a bolt of searing white pain. Fire licks up her face and rages through her body and she  _ screams _ .

➼ ➼ ➼

Morgana watches as magic is rekindled in Merlin.

A tempest of wind and Druid spells whips through the night where the magician stands tall, wielding the Sword like a staff. Lightning arcs from his fingertips, fueled by loss as he slays Paladins faster than she can count. But she feels their deaths when the red-robed men fall like raindrops, screams trailing after them as they follow Nimue’s descent into the water far below.

“Come!” Merlin calls, reaching out to her through the maelstrom he’s created.

She goes to him instinctually, black skirts lifted from her boots. The ancient wraps an arm around her waist, whirls the Sword around them, chanting furiously . . .

And then they are gone.

➼ ➼ ➼

Nimue falls weightless through the cold.

She aches from far away, eyes open onto nothing. She reaches for her Sword, but it is gone.

And she keeps falling.

➼ ➼ ➼

His camp is in  _ ruins _ .

Paladins run about in those flapping red robes, bent on destruction. Fire licks up into the night from collapsed tents. The stench of blood and shit and bile wafts through the smoky air, causing Uther to press a swift hand against his nostrils as he peers around the shoulders of one of his personal guards.

“Holy men, our royal ass,” he coughs. “More like blood-crazed barbarians.”

“Take care, Majesty,” the guard grunts.

“No!” Uther stiffens upright. “We will not hide in fear! We will march out there and stop these . . . these  _ savages _ from further destruction of our kingdom.”

And with that pronouncement, Uther pushes past his guards and strides into the open. He straightens his crown, lifts his chin, and shouts, “Cease this atta—”

He gets no further since, with a shouted warning from his guards, a Paladin rides at him with a mace.

Uther yelps in a most undignified manner as he scurries back. The heel of his boot catches on the ground, sending him flailing back hard onto his rear but saving him as the spiked mace whistles through air where his head had been.

His guards rush from the tent—one lifting him back to his feet and the others pulling the Paladin from his steed.

“Give us this,” Uther snaps, reaching for the sword on the guard’s belt.

The guard hesitates, so Uther leans in and yanks the weapon free. He strides over to where the Paladin has been forced to his knees between the guards, blade pointed at his sooty features.

“You tried to kill us. Why?”

“You have taken the side of the Fey,” the Paladin hisses, spitting at Uther’s feet. “The Church therefore holds no loyalty to such a king.”

Uther sniffs. Looks around around at the destruction and chaos—

—and stabs his borrowed blade through the Paladin's neck.

As the man falls with a gurgle, Uther lets the sword go with him. He wipes his hands against the sides of his trousers, glaring at the expressionless faces of his guards.

"Well, don't just stand there!" he snaps at them. "Go and sweep these pests from our sight!"

"Father Carden is dead!" a shout rises from the edges of the camp a few minutes later as his men push the Paladins back.

"Shame," Uther mutters. "He was a thorn in our ass."

Suddenly, the skies turn angry above them. Lighting flashes and thunder smashes through the air. Wind howls through the camp, tossing the fleeing Paladins even quicker on their way.

And then the sky stretches down in a whirling tempest and out of it strides Merlin. Electricity sparks white in the wizard's eyes . . . and he carries the Sword.

Uther tries to rally himself as Merlin approaches, but still he trembles like a frightened child instead of a king. 

"Hello, Uther," Merlin thunders, his once-drunken smile now sharp and dangerous.

"I-I see you found—"

"My magic?" Merlin interjects, his smile widening into a teeth-bared grin. "Yes."

"Well . . . good."

Uther stands awkwardly, aware of his army slinking away from him, too cowardly to face the infamous Merlin. He doesn't blame them—no. He  _ loathes _ their betrayal.

"Here." Merlin extends the Sword hilt-first to him. "As promised: the Sword of the First Kings."

Uther’s eyebrows raise as he gestures in disbelief. “You will give it . . . to  _ us _ ?”

“Yes, yes.” Merlin’s voice slips from ancient power into the drawling tone that is more recognizable. “Are you going to take it or not, your Majesty?”

“We will take it,” Uther says, but he hesitates to reach out.

Merlin sighs, steps forward, and shoves the hilt into his palm. “There. It’s yours.”

Uther scrambles to keep the blade upright under the sudden transferral. He brings both hands to the hilt, staring at the etched carvings along the blade that almost seems to  _ sing _ to him.

“Marvelous,” he whispers.

“Merlin, what have you done?” a female voice shrieks. Uther looks up to see a young woman cloaked in swirling black rush towards them, anger blazing from her towards the wizard. “Why did you give it to  _ him _ ?”

“Take care how you speak to us, girl!” Uther snaps habitually.

“I don’t care,” she responds.

While he is choking on her unexpected impudence, she whirls on Merlin. “That is the sword of  _ our _ people, not his! What has he done for the Fey?  _ Why have you done this _ ?”

On the last words, the girl’s voice slips deeper. Her eyes darken and the bones of her face become obscenely pronounced, as if her skin is nothing but paper waiting to be torn away from the skull beneath.

“Because you still have much to learn about how the fates of the world work,” Merlin tells her, speaking calmly as if she had not just turned demonkind before him. “He is not the Church.”

“No, we are not,” Uther manages.

But he feels . . . small. The Sword is finally in his hands, but he does not sense the power it has been said to bestow upon whomever wields it. He feels nothing but confusion and the vague urge to cast these two away to carry on their magical spat elsewhere.

“He let the Church slaughter and burn,” she snarls, this time fixing her angry gaze upon Uther. “He does not deserve the Sword.”

“Beg pardon, but who are you?” he asks.

“My name is Morgana.” Her voice is quiet but she speaks the name powerfully, as if it’s supposed to mean something.

It doesn’t. Uther has absolutely no clue who she is or what role she plays in this entire mess.

“Right,” he continues, lowering the sword and removing one hand from the hilt to rest on his hip. “See, we’ve got the Sword now and we intend to keep it. Cumber and his Ice berserkers cannot lay claim to the throne without the sword, and while they did not make a promise against harming the Fey . . . we did.”

“And you’ll keep that promise?” she scoffs. “I don’t believe you.”

“Then we will stay and make sure he does,” Merlin speaks up, beaming in an unsettling manner towards Uther. “Won’t we?”

He wants to forbid them from dogging after his heels like caretakers. But Uther knows there is no stopping Merlin, not when he was a drunken flop and certainly not now that he has magic once more. So he nods in what he hopes is a regal enough manner and grins tightly at them.

“Of course,” he manages. “We would be delighted.”

➼ ➼ ➼

They ride into the burning night, smoke choking his senses. Pain weighs on his body and flashes sharp through his broken ribs, but he’ll survive.

The boy talks endlessly, his words giving him something to focus on, to stay in the  _ now _ instead of falling into the oblivion that snaps at his heels. Even if half the things the boy talks about is how terrible Lancelot’s existence has been for the lives of the Fey.

“Are you all right?” the boy asks, twisting around to look at him.

Lancelot hisses as agony flares at the movement. “No.”

“You need a healer,” Percival states wisely. “There’s a lot of good healers with the Fey.”

“No,” he repeats. “No healers. Now be quiet.”

“I was just trying to help,” the boy mutters, facing forward. They plod on atop Goliath’s back for several moments of silence before the boy pipes up again. “If you don’t need a healer, then  _ where _ are we going?”

“Far away. Now, be  _ quiet _ .”

And, blessedly, Percival does settle as the day drags on. He even leans back once or twice to catch a few moments of sleep, although he wonders how the boy can sleep so peacefully when he snores like a troll.

They reach dense woods in the twilight, Goliath winding wearily through the mossy trunks without Lancelot’s guidance. The boy is awake but still silent, looking around at the forest with the eyes of one accustomed to such surroundings.

“Do you know where we are?” Lancelot asks him.

“No, do you?”

He grimaces. “No.”

A few minutes later, they reach a shallow, winding stream that smells of the cold from its mountain origin.

“Good horse,” Lancelot murmurs to his steed, fingertips stroking his neck where the reins lie.

Goliath whickers in response and Percival scrambles down with a hurried explanation of, “I gotta drain.”

As the boy scurries into the woods behind them, Lancelot dismounts with a grunt. He removes the bit from Goliath’s mouth so the animal can drink freely, and then crouches down next to it.

He pushes his hood back and splashes icy water across his face, scrubbing soot and dried blood from his features. He moves slow because of his ribs, bursts of white-hot pain leaping across his torso with every small movement. But the cold of the stream sharpens his senses.

Leaning back on his heels, he closes his eyes and wraps the scents of the night around him.

It hurts when he breathes in deep, but he needs this. He needs the scents of the forest and wind and scurrying things in his nostrils to remind himself that they are safe . . . for the time. There is no hint of Fey or human besides the leafy, lingering tang of the boy.

He takes another breath, lips parted to taste the breeze—

—and catches  _ her _ scent.

The one dipped in wolf-blood and incense from the monastery. The girl who smelled like the forest in human form and the bitter iron of old magic.

Lancelot rises to his feet, peering into the darkness. Her scent is close but faint; whispering tendrils floating brokenly through the air. He closes his eyes again and  _ breathes _ , ignoring the pain.

There—the scent weaves down and to the left, past a bend in the stream.

The boy slips back at that moment, his scent tangling with hers. He looks up at Lancelot with a frown, catching his focus.

“What’s wrong?” he whispers.

“Your queen is here,” he replies, stepping past him.

“Nimue?” Percival shakes his head. “No, she’s in Gramaire.”

“Gramaire was abandoned by the Fey,” Lancelot corrects him. He presses a hand against his ribs, hissing quietly as the bones shift under his palm. “Your queen surrendered herself to Uther Pendragon as the price for their safety.”

“So, why is she here . . .”

They’ve reached the bend in the stream now, the boy’s voice trailing off as he sees the arrow-pierce body lying crooked on the opposite bank.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go! A sprawling saga of angst, redemption, and twisted characters. This chapter features the main POV's I'm going to rotate through in this story—Sister Iris, Morgana, Nimue, Uther, and Lancelot.
> 
> No, I don't plan on bringing Arthur & Co. in this anytime soon beyond mentions . . . but maybe later? _Much_ later, if ever. Halfway, depending on how long this plays out.


	2. — of death and whispers —

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgana faces her new reality and Nimue wakes up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not going to have all 5 POV's in the same chapters all the time btw

Morgana cannot sleep.

She tosses and turns and sweats in the too-big bed, half-formed nightmares ghosting across her eyelids. She is not tired, but she is  _ exhausted _ . Weariness pulls at her bones and turns them leaden as she sits up to swing her feet over the side, bare toes brushing cold against the floor stones.

She goes to the window and throws it open. She smells the ocean—salt and seaweed heavy on the wind that whistles loud through the room, whipping wild through the drapes and tapestries—and watches the waves far below crash against the craggy roots of the castle she stands in. Her eyes close as she falls into the ebb and flow, pulsing through her veins and thundering in her chest.

The nightmares make their appearance again—Celia and the angry burns across her skin. The spider she lifted to Morgana’s lips that sent her down a path of horrors.

Whispers from the Cailleach haunting her thoughts, turning her mad . . . and opening her eyes to the gaping skull of an ancient demon. The terror Morgana had been paralyzed with as that demon choked life from her with skeletal fingers against her throat. The shrieking wail of the demon’s end as Morgana plunged the Sword into its maw.

And then pain—so much pain clawing along her bones and molding her. The knowledge of deaths falling down on her senses like a wave of inescapable suffocation.

She remembers  _ stepping _ through places to stand before Nimue and deliver the Sword that had cursed them both.

She had later removed and burned the mourning clothes that had draped over her body moments after she’d slain the ghastly creature. But she still remembers the rough scrape over her skin; still feels the veil gusting across her nose and lips.

“What am I?” she whispers, opening her eyes.

Morgana lifts her hands, turning them over and over. They still appear the same: chapped skin and rough-bitten nails. The hands of a human, not some spectre of death.

She pushes away from the window and leaves the room, dark skirts whispering over her quiet feet as she wanders barefoot through the rough-carved halls of the sleeping castle. The king’s fortress smells of wet stone and rust cloaked in the fresh green of the reeds strewn everywhere. The walls are damp as Morgana runs her hand along them, moisture beading on her fingertips as she goes.

Whispers trickle into her mind, scraps of information of imminent ends. There are so many paths she could  _ step _ to those waiting for her to grasp and swallow and take.

She turns a corner—

—and Merlin crushes a palm against her mouth to stifle the scream that rises instinctually.

Morgana slaps his hand away with a glare, scrubbing at her lips.

“Sleep is for the living,” the magician says by way of greeting.

“I beg your pardon?” she demands in a fierce whisper.

He slouches against the wall, hugging his staff to him as he looks down at her with a patronizing expression that she instantly loathes. Merlin may be older, but Morgana has never thought that made him worthy of her respect.

“Sleep is something only the living have,” he repeats. “That’s why you can’t find it.”

“I don’t know what—”

“I know who you killed.” Merlin’s gaze deepens along with his voice. “I know what you did and what was passed on as consequence.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” Morgana hisses, moving past him.

But the magician shoves away from the wall and falls in-step with her as she continues through the castle, her destination unfixed and her footsteps slow and meandering because of it.

“You killed a Shadow Lord,” he continues. “I don’t know how you managed to pull that off, and yet you did . . . which makes you the newest Shadow Lord.”

“I didn’t ask for that.”

“No, but you have it.” He feigns a cough, a smile pulling tightly at the corners of his mouth and eyes when she stops to face him. “She was called the Widow. We were allies. Friends even, I migh—”

“I am  _ not _ your ally,” she tells him, tongue heavy as her voice splits and deepens. Possibilities flash through her mind, all leading to Merlin’s end by her hands. “And I am not your friend.

Her powers wake with her anger. And as her body trembles under the swelling crush of her new inheritance, his expression shifts into something close to wariness.

_ Good _ , she thinks.  _ Let him be careful of me. _

She raises a hand and Merlin is flung back against the wall with a resounding crack that shudders through the castle. The black veil appears and flutters down before her gaze as she approaches, her jaw stretching wide. Electricity crackles in his eyes, but she snuffs it out by squeezing her outstretched hand into a fist that tightens the pressure on his throat.

“My name is Morgana,” she intones. “I am not the Widow, but I carry her power. And you will not test me again,  _ magician _ .”

She clenches her fist harder when he does not respond, drawing a strangled gasp from his writhing body.

“Agreed,” Merlin chokes out.

Morgana releases him. He falls heavy to the floor as the veil disappears and her jaw resettles. The power fades, but she does not fall. She stands over Merlin and sees true fear in the ancient’s eyes.

“Do you still wonder how I killed your friend?” she murmurs.

“No,” he croaks. “No, I do not.”

Morgana leaves him sprawled on the floor as she continues in her sleepless exploration.

➼ ➼ ➼

  
  


Nimue dreams of a lake.

She falls down into its dark, icy depths. Her eyes are open onto wavering beams of light that show ribbons of red stretching up from her body. They twist and shudder through the water, curling like blood.

They are blood.

She aches in her chest, twin points of pain. She wants to pluck the hurt out and toss it away, but she is frozen.

“Hold her now.”

Nimue doesn’t recognize the voice that rasps quiet against her ears. She is still falling, still drowning—

—but is suddenly pulled to the surface by agony.

She groans, stomach heaving as water sits choking in her throat.

“Turn her, turn her!” the voice snaps.

She feels hands now, rolling her so she can vomit the lake from her body. She heaves again and again, each gasping clench bringing her further into awareness.

Nimue opens her eyes onto the yellow blur of a campfire. Boulders lie scattered about where she lies, shadows dancing in grotesque figures along them . . . and fainter in the trees beyond. A black horse grazes untethered, dark eyes calmly watching her pain.

“Easy,” the voice continues from behind her. “Back now.”

She obeys in a haze of confusion and pain. When she is rolled back, she sees a familiar face.

“Squirrel . . .” she manages hoarsely.

The boy grins wide at her, his young face smudged with dirt like always. Nimue turns her head, looking for Gawain on instinct. But as the pain of his death surges through her memories, she finds a different face instead.

The Weeping Monk crouches next to her, head uncovered and firelight dancing bright against the mockery of tearstains that fall dark from his eyes.

“ _ You _ !”

Rage fills Nimue, sweeping aside her pain. She scrambles back, her fernmarks rising along her jaw as she reaches instinctually for the power of the Hidden. Vines surge up to encircle him, pinning him to the ground.

“Nimue, stop!” Squirrel shouts, but she doesn’t listen.

“Run!” she tells the boy.

She lifts herself to her feet, her body sluggish. Magic thrums fierce in her veins as she  _ pushes _ . The Weeping Monk’s vine-wrapped body begins to sink into the dirt, the slither and creak of vines melding with the whisper of the Hidden.

“Stop it!” Squirrel yells, rushing past her to pull at the vines. “He’s one of us, Nimue. He’s Fey!”

“He’s a murderer,” she says, her voice loud and echoing of the Hidden.

“He saved me. He saved you. Please”—Squirrel is almost sobbing now, small body strained against the vines—“don’t do this. Nimue,  _ please _ .”

_ Killer burner traitor not one of us not Fey, _ the Hidden hiss in her mind.  _ Kill. _

“No,” she murmurs.

This is not the Hidden whispering to her, but something else. Something darker.

Fear allows weakness to flood over her body, and with it— _ pain _ .

Her magic fades. The vines slither away and Squirrel tugs the Weeping Monk out of the churned earth. And as the tall figure rises to his feet . . . she topples to the ground.

“Nimue!” Squirrel calls.

Her eyes close as darkness wraps around her once more.

➼ ➼ ➼

The drowned girl falls moments after her magic releases him and Lancelot moves forward on instinct, catching her limp body with a pained sound.

“Help me,” he says to Percival, who then lifts some of the weight from his screaming ribs as they lower her back to the bedroll she’d left.

He focuses next on peeling the torn edges of her dress from the wounds he’d pulled Fey arrows from just minutes ago. He didn’t even have the chance to bandage them before she’d gained consciousness explosively . . . so he does so now. Percival watches throughout the process of salves on torn and bloodied skin, but helps wrap the makeshift bandages from Lancelot’s cloak.

Afterwards, they walk together back down to the stream to wash the girl’s blood from their hands and, in his case, dirt from his face and neck. He can still smell the sharp green of the suffocating vines and taste the mud and forest rot of the earth.

“Sorry she buried you,” the boy says.

“You tried to kill me, too,” he replies. “I’ve grown used to it.”

Percival laughs suddenly, bright and cackling. “That’s funny!”

Lancelot stares at him in the dark and wonders how on God’s good earth his words were humorous. He had only stated the obvious: that the Fey saw him as an enemy—as they should. He had not earned goodwill from anyone . . . not even the God he’d fought so much for.

And yet, the boy still gave it.

“Funny?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Percival snickers, stretching to his feet. “I am.”

He skips back to their camp ahead of Lancelot’s pained strides. His ribs burn from the pressure of the vines and half-burial so he leans against a tree for a moment’s rest.

Green climbs up his fingers and stretches up his arm, warm and singing. He yanks his hand away, shame rising hot and bitter in his throat. For while his blood may be Fey, that was all that was left of his heritage.

In every other way, Lancelot is truly the monster spoken of in whispered bedtime warnings.

➼ ➼ ➼

She wakes up slower this time.

It is still dark and she still hurts, but Nimue survived. She was shot and she fell and she drowned . . . and she is still impossibly here. She looks at where the arrows pierced her to find bandages and the murky herb scent of healing salves.

_ Traitor, _ that strange voice murmurs in her head.

A loud snore sends the voice running and a smile tugs at the edges of her mouth. Only Squirrel could be louder in his sleep than he was when awake.

She turns her head, bottom lip tight between her teeth against the pain, and sees the boy sprawled next to the fire. A dark cloak covers his body—

—and then she sees the Weeping Monk.

He sits hunched over, knees up and dark-streaked features tight with pain as he holds the edge of his tunic up with one hand and dabs salve along his side with the other. Bruises stretch red and angry over his torso and every time his fingers touch against his ribs, his jaw tightens in a grimace.

“What happened?” Nimue asks.

The monk blinks up at her, his strange, marked eyes glazed with pain.

“The Trinity Guard,” he says quietly. That means nothing to her and it must show because he adds, “The Pope’s special warriors.”

“You fought the  _ Pope _ ?”

“No, I fought his guard.” He focuses back on his ribs again, hissing softly as he smears green salve over the bruises. “They were after the boy.”

Nimue can understand the urge to protect Squirrel—a brave but reckless boy. He must have gone into the camp after Gawain . . .

“Did you kill him?” she snarls. “The Green Knight— _ did you kill him _ ?”

“No . . . but I was the one who brought him into the camp.” 

She moves to sit up, to do  _ something _ beyond soaking helpless in her rage, but agony lances through her chest. She growls at the pain, tears welling hot in her eyes.

“You were shot and almost drowned,” the Weeping Monk says.

“I  _ know _ .”

“So,” he continues unfazed by her sharpness, “don’t move.”

She glares at him from where she lies, weak and  _ tired _ . She is glad to be alive, but she grits against the powerlessness that permeates her entire body.

“You’ve let hundreds of children die before,” she lashes out. “Why change your mind? Why now?”

_ Why didn’t you save Gawain, too? _

He lifts his head again, stray curls falling loose from his knotted hair to hang in his eerie, unwavering gaze. But Nimue sees nothing in those weeping eyes to help her think of him as more than the terrible shadow at the side of Father Carden. 

“I can’t give you answers,” he murmurs, “for I do not yet know them myself.”

“Bullshit,” she snaps.

But she is too weary to argue. Anger seethes restless under her skin, but she cannot let it out. She is not strong enough . . . yet.

“If you bring me to the Church,” she says quietly, sleep pulling at her, “I will tear you apart.”

“And if you kill me,” he replies. “I won’t stop you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure you've noticed by now that I use en dashes "—" a lot. My reasoning: it's a camera angle change. I tend to write very visually (someone put me on a TV writer team _please_ ) so scene-setting punctuation is my friend.
> 
> And again, Arthur & Co. is mentioned a lot in here, but **the first part of this story is focused on the two trios of** : Nimue, Squirrel, and Lancelot AND Morgana, Uther, and Merlin. Side characters both new and canon will make appearances as the story progresses.


	3. — all the king's men —

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uther is curious and Morgana proposes an alliance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is no Nimulot in here . . . just Uther and Morgana with a dash of Merlin.
> 
> Don't worry, the next chapter will be mostly Nimulot-centric!! I just had to really dive into these two for a bit to get them going on their separate arcs.

Three days after the return to his castle, Uther invites the strange young woman to a private dinner.

She has been haunting the halls at nighttime, too-quiet with her features too-blank. After being startled by rounding a corner on her more than once, he is ready to have an end of it.

And so he sets the kitchens to work on a roast, boiled and fluffed potatoes, candied things, and white-floured bread. And as the dishes are made and the invitation is sent to her quarters, Uther feels quite pleased with himself and his efforts. 

Just before the dinner, Merlin crashes into the dining hall. He stalks towards Uther and looms over him, reeking of wine and lightning.

“Why,” the magician says in a disturbingly cheerful tone, “are you having dinner with her?”

Uther does not look at him. He continues to focus on the cream-white lilies he is arranging in the centerpiece vase on the table as he says, “Do we need a reason to break bread with anyone of our choosing?”

“Why her?” Merlin clarifies.

“We know you.” Uther gives the largest flower a final adjustment into the center before turning to Merlin, a hand coming to rest on the hilt of the Sword belted at his waist. “But we do not know her. So, we intend to learn about her over dinner . . . as polite people usually do.”

He has never had the gall to provoke Merlin in this way before, but the Sword singing softly under his palm adds quite a level of confidence.

“You never invited me to dinner.”

“We grew up with you skulking about the place, smelling of wine and piss.” Uther says with a dismissive shrug. “What else is there to know about you? What do you have to share with us that you did not in the past?”

“Careful now, Uther,” Merlin drawls. “That attitude suited your mother better than it suits you.”

“ _ We _ choose what suits us, not  _ you! _ ” Uther snarls, baring his teeth at the magician. “And do not mention the woman who called herself our”—he spits the word out like a piece of spoiled food—“mother.”

Merlin grins wide—too wide.

“I want the next dinner,” he says.

And then he leaves, the doors of the hall slamming loud behind his departure.

Uther snarls his frustration into the empty room, his voice rippling in pathetic echoes in the silence after. He should not let Merlin upset him . . . but the magician has always had a talent for slipping past barriers to prick at the softest points.

“Damn him and his eternal plague of an existence,” Uther mutters, kicking at a chair.

His toes miss and the top of his foot hits instead, harder than he expected. Curses tumble from his mouth as he bends over . . . and knocks his crown against the table, just enough that it falls from his head and clatters into the darkness beneath the tablecloth.

Uther is still on hands and knees, groping blindly for his fallen crown when she arrives.

She is clad in a simple, dark blue gown and her hair is unbound, a halo of wild curls surrounding her features. She walks quietly where Merlin had stormed, stopping a few paces away to look down at him with an unreadable expression.

“Hello,” he says reflexively.

“Have you lost something?” she asks.

“Yes,” he says, again on reflex. “We have lost our crown.”

She smiles faintly. “What a tragedy.”

“Indeed.”

He reaches further under the tablecloth and,  _ finally _ , his fingers brush against the cool, pointed metal of the crown. He retrieves and replaces it on his head, standing up to face her at his full height . . . although the effect he’d intended was useless the moment she’d seen him practically crawling like a child instead of bearing himself like the king he was supposed to portray.

But his awkwardness switches to annoyance when he sees the young woman’s gaze hone in on the Sword.

“If you are going to try and take it from us—” he starts.

“I’m not.”

Uther snaps his mouth shut. “Er . . . good.”

She brushes past him and sits down at the table, adjusting her skirts as she surveys the arranged dishes with their burnished silver covers. Her eyes linger on the lilies before she looks over at him with an raised eyebrow of expectation.

He grits his teeth as he walks to his chair. How has she managed to get him as frustrated as Merlin—without even speaking?

After he is seated, Uther does not ring the bell at his plate for the servants to come and serve. Instead, he stares at her, fingers tapping against the hilt of the whispering Sword.

She returns the look, cool and unblinking.

“We are very curious about you,” he finally says into their tense silence.

“There’s not much to be curious about,” she replies in that infuriatingly collected tone. “I’m nobody.”

Uther scoffs, slouching in his chair. “We saw what happened to you when Merlin gave us the Sword.”

“And what,” the young woman says, her lips pulling back in an almost too-wide smile, “did you see?”

“The face of a demon hidden beneath your skin.”

She laughs, head tipped back. “Oh, your Majesty. You didn’t see a demon; you just saw me. Nothing else.”

“Nothing else,” he muses, his upper lip curling in disbelief.

But Uther gives in . . . for now. The lines have been drawn and he can spar with her just as well over a full plate versus an empty one. For if there was one thing Uther had learned from his liar of a mother, it was how to use a meal as a battleground.

He rings the bell and the servants enter, stepping softly with practiced grace to lift the covers of the dishes and taste the food. They chew, swallow, wait . . . and then serve. Once the plates are full and wine poured into their glasses, they leave.

“I’ve never been served before,” the young woman murmurs, almost to herself. “It feels strange to be on this side of things.”

“You were a servant?” Uther asks, sipping at his wine.

She snorts. “Worse—a nun.”

“Ah.”

They eat, silverware tinking softly against their plates. Uther wonders if maybe he should have prepared music to fill this awful silence—

—when she lays her utensils down with an unexpected clatter that startles him, wine splashing down his chin.

“Why am I here?” she asks.

“Gods teeth,” he mutters, swiping a sleeve against his face. “We said we were curious about you.”

“This isn’t Merlin’s plan?”

“Hardly! We are not that drunkard’s puppet.” Uther leans forward, jabbing a finger against his chest. “ _ We _ were his master before he found magic again. We remember when he was nothing but a fool, scraping along on trickery and false promises.”

She leans forward as well, forearms braced against the table edge. “So he was always terrible?”

“The absolute  _ worst _ .”

“But he gave you the Sword.”

Uther slumps. He takes a long draft of his wine. He flicks a crumb to the floor.

“We do not know why he did that,” he admits. “We are glad to have the Sword but—”

“—you’re worried Merlin’s up to something.”

He sits up, throwing his hands wide. “Yes, exactly!”

She tilts her head, inspecting him. This time, he can see glints of curiosity in her amber eyes and it feels  _ nice _ to be listened to. To share something, even if it is a disdain for and wariness of the ancient magician.

“I don’t trust you,” she states.

“We don’t ask you to . . . but”—he finishes his wine glass, setting it down a bit too loud as the alcohol washes warm down his throat—“it would be nice if we could trust  _ you _ .”

“Me?”

“Yes.” The wine must be the reason his guard is low and his tongue has loosened. “We can assure that you do not worry us, well”—he makes a thoughtful expression—“you do worry us a little. We wonder  _ what _ you are . . . but that doesn’t matter!”

Uther waves his hand, dismissing his rambling words. He reaches for his wineglass again only to discover it empty with a small, mournful sound.

“Oh,” he says. “It’s gone.”

“You drank it,” she says.

He blinks up at her as she stands up to pour him another glass. “We don’t remember your name.”

“It’s Morgana.” Her voice is soft around the sounds.

“Do  _ you _ know what you are, Morgana?”

She sits down and does not look at him as she says, “No.”

➼ ➼ ➼

She still has not slept.

Morgana has paced throughout the entirety of the castle, night after night. Merlin avoids her, she scares servants and the king alike with her wanderings, and still she has no answer as to what sort of thing she has become. She hears the last, gasping whispers of deaths and sometimes she is pulled to the bodies, but no instincts rise to tell her what she must do.

She knows only one thing—that she is terrified. And, in front of this king with his questions and wine, confessions slip from her.

“No,” she says when he asks if she knows what has happened to her.

“We hope you learn the answer soon,” Uther says, taking a long swill from his glass. “We know the pain of unanswered questions. We know how they can  _ burn _ at your heart, turning your nights sleepless and your mind wild with the awful not-knowing.”

Morgana looks up, her composure cracking under the unexpected sense of being seen and understood. She wonders how a man such as Uther Pendragon could do such a thing as to make her feel human even when she feels nothing close to that anymore.

She said she did not trust him . . . and she doesn’t. However, maybe—maybe she could. Gods know she could use a confidant, so why not him? Uther never seemed to have anyone close to him, just swarms of nobles he would constantly swat aside like hovering flies as he went about his royal life.

“Your Majesty,” Morgana blurts, raising her glass. “I propose an alliance.”

“To what end?” he drawls. “Yours or ours?”

“To both.”

“Does this proposed alliance involve the obfuscation of Merlin from our sight?”

Morgana laughs and he smiles up at her, wine-warmed and candlelit. “It might.”

“Done!” he announces, pushing himself up from his chair and raising his almost-empty glass. “To an alliance! And, in return”—he rattles the Sword on his belt—“we will give this to you.”

She frowns. “I don’t need it.”

“Well, we don’t want it,” Uther retorts, bracing his palms against the table and waggling his head at her. “We just didn’t want Cumber the Ice Bastard to get his hairy paws on it.  _ We _ are king of this land, not some scurvy raider!”

“I can promise nothing but my best efforts . . .” she starts.

“Done!” Uther cries again, swaying upright. “Now, eat this feast we spent all day preparing for you.”

And so they do, the mood between them much lighter after their strange deal had been struck.

Nimue may be gone, but the Sword remains and it belongs with the Fey so she will bring it to them. She wonders why Uther is willing to give it up so easily, and if he truly meant those wine-soaked offers . . . but then she has another glass of wine and stops thinking.

“Gods,” Uther says when they have finished eating, his elbows draped along the table. “Perhaps Merlin was right and wine is the answer to everything.”

Morgana laughs, first at his words and then at his sprawled position.

“Do not mock us,” he giggles. He sits upright and points at her. “We are the king!”

“I’ve never been drunk before,” she says.

“Oh, how grand!” He leans forward and whispers loudly, “We have not, either. Mother wouldn’t allow it and then we didn’t think to try it.”

He suddenly lunges up from the table, a hand extended to her. She blinks at his approach, but he  _ tsks _ and wiggles his fingers.

“Come,” the tipsy king says, “let’s go about the castle, we and you, and see how many comment on our appearance so that we may toss them in the dungeons.”

“That’s horrible.”

He grins. “We know. That’s why it’s fun.”

➼ ➼ ➼

Uther cannot believe it has taken him this long to discover the beauty of what drinking does to a mood.

He and the young woman called Morgana totter out of the dining room and down the hall. She says his crown is crooked and he calls her a waste-mouthed scourge . . . at which they both laugh uproariously. Servants scurry away from them, to which he calls after and tells them that it isn’t very fun to yell at nothing and they should be glad they’re not in the dungeons.

And then, Merlin finds them.

“Oh,  _ you _ ,” Uther snorts. “Come to laugh at us, have you?”

But the magician ignores him, instead turning to Morgana. “What is going on here?”

“Am I not allowed to forget my terrible existence for one night?” she demands. “You’re not  _ my _ father nor my keeper. So bugger off and let us be.”

“This is the king of the land,” Merlin continues.

“Right, we are.” Uther agrees. “So, bugger off.”

Lightning crackles through the air as Merlin’s eyes whiten, but Morgana steps forward with a shooing motion.  _ Something _ ripples through the air and Merlin slams into the wall, gasping for breath.

“Do it again!” Uther cackles.

“Fine, have your fun,” Merlin growls, picking himself up.

“Yes, we shall,” Morgana says. “Thank you.”

“What the bloody hell are you thanking him for?” Uther asks her after Merlin has stalked away.

She stares at him. “I . . . don’t know.”

They burst into laughter again, the echo of it bouncing along the stone walls as they collapse to the floor together. His stomach aches in a good way from laughing and his head spins pleasantly.

“We have never gotten drunk before,” he says observingly.

“I know,” she says. “That’s what I told you.”

“No.  _ Ay-ee _ ,” he over-enunciates, gesturing at himself. “I. Me—Uther Pendragon.”

He starts giggling again, mouthing his name under his breath. He tips his head back, his crown clinking against the wall.

“I would like to have a dragon,” he says. “I would give it a pen, teach it to write so it shall be my secretary, and thus it would be our pen . . .  _ dragon _ !”

Morgana howls at that, arms clutched about her stomach as she repeats, “ _ Pen _ dragon!”

When they have finished laughing again, they lie sprawled together on the stones, gasping and grinning. He closes his eyes—

—and the ache in his stomach is not good anymore.

“Oh,  _ gods _ ,” he groans.

And then he is abruptly, violently sick.

➼ ➼ ➼

Morgana does not know how she fell asleep, but she knows that she dreams.

In the dream, she walks along a narrow path. It is crooked and difficult, but she cannot turn back; she  _ must _ follow it to the end. Even though her feet begin to stick to the ground, residue pulling up in white, webby strings with every step, she keeps walking.

Gods,  _ where _ is she going?

“My love . . .”

“You’re dead,” she tells Celia, who disappears like smoke on a windy day.

Tears roll down her cheeks in searing streaks, pooling salty on her lips. When she licks them away, they taste bitter.

“ _ Morganaaaaaa _ ,” a voice rasps in the distance.  _ “You broke your promise _ .”

“What promise?” she shrieks . . . but no words come. There is just a silent scream tangled in her throat.

She gasps for breath. Her chest is tight and her vision blurs, the world turning dizzy and upside down.

Spiders rush to her fallen body from the dark, crawling up her with their spindly, pricking legs. They swarm against her face, pushing past her lips and into her mouth, down into her stomach.

The scream untangles—

—and Morgana wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to see if y'all have any guesses about where I'm going with this plot 😊


	4. — blood will bring blood —

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lancelot remembers, Nimue doubts, and Sister Iris awakens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also known as: the One Where Everyone Wakes Up  
> mostly Nimulot-centric with some angst & action  
> (not the smutty kind haha that's waaaay off in the distance)

It is quiet when Lancelot wakes up.

He opens his eyes onto an almost-dawn starting to weave across the sky in gray threads. The forest around their encampment is hushed, birds and insects yet to rise. Percival still snores, but softer than when the boy had first fallen asleep.

He looks around on instinct, drawing everything into his circle of waking awareness—the dim embers of the fire, the boy sprawled on his side under Lancelot’s cloak, Goliath’s dark form standing at rest near the piled saddlebags . . .

And Nimue.

The girl sleeps on her back, her features serene. But he remembers the fury in her eyes and the Skyfolk green crawling up her jaw as magic crackled through air, the smell burning in his nostrils. He remembers how she rose up, even though she’d just been pulled from the edge of death, wounded and half-drowned, to protect the boy.

He still feels the ground closing over him, vines squeezing tight, her power drowning him in the dirt. He’d dreamed of it and maybe that’s why he’s awake this early, pained and exhausted and—

—he’s staring at her.

Lancelot looks away and back up at the slowly brightening sky. She is the Fey Queen: the sum of  _ everything _ he’d been raised to hate about the Fey . . . and himself.

So why, of all the beings for him to fall in company with, why  _ her _ ?

He sits up slowly, muscles stiff and agony scraping across his ribs. He breathes in soft hisses against the pain as he gets to his feet. Sleep-loosened hair falls into his eyes as he hobbles over to Goliath who greets him with a soft whicker.

“Shh,” Lancelot tells the horse, keeping the animal from bumping affectionately against him with its head. “Let them sleep.”

His gaze drifts over to the soundly-sleeping Percival, something tugging deep inside his chest at the boy’s young face. He is too young to have been through so much grief.

_ He is of the Devil _ , a thought snarls in Father Carden’s brogue, twisting like a knife into his soul.  _ Do not suffer the little children; end them quick before they grow and more of these evil creatures spread like poison in God’s kingdom _ .

“No,” he mutters, squeezing his eyes tight.

He never hurt the children. That had been the one thing keeping him from the pit of madness that yawned open in front of him during battle. It is the one thing he clings onto; the one thing that keeps him not entirely a monster.

_ But you’re still a monster _ , his own voice now murmurs.  _ You’ve taken away the homes and family of all the children you didn’t kill. You didn’t end their life—you ruined it. _

Goliath nudges at his hand, lipping at his fingers and pulling him from the darkness of his mind.

“Hey now,” he tells the horse. “You’ve had all evening to wander about and stuff yourself on grass.”

Goliath responds with a grumbling protest, but drops his head to the ground a few moments later. 

Lancelot empties his mind as he leans against the sturdy shoulder of his horse, tipping his head up to the sky. He smiles a little at the faint pink strands now starting to lace alongside the gray and, just for a moment, he imagines this is what peace feels like.

➼ ➼ ➼

Nimue wakes up from strange dreams. 

She is warm but a little chilly from the dew; she wants to sleep again but knows she won’t. And so she lies in a mostly painless state of drowsy awareness, blinking up at the pink-touched threads of sunlight winding across the still-dim sky.

Until a horse rumbles nearby and she looks towards the sound.

The Weeping Monk leans against his black steed. His hair is a loose, sleep-tangled mess and his eyemarks are blurred in the soft light of dawn. He has no cloak, no weapons, none of the terrible parts of the murderer she knows him to be.

Right now, he is just a man lifting his face to the sunrise and she cannot stop looking at him—

—and Nimue’s heart clenches when she realizes why.

Gawain used to tip his head up to the rising sun like this. Her eyes sting with tears, the Monk disappears . . . and her childhood friend stands in front of her instead.

But when she blinks the tears away, he isn’t Gawain—it’s  _ him _ . It is wrong for him to stand calm and content like this when he is the destroyer of everything she loves: her home, her friend, her people.

It  _ hurts _ .

The Weeping Monk turns back towards the camp and their eyes meet. He matches the weight of her glare with an unreadable expression and,  _ gods _ , she wants him dead. She wants him and the Church to pay for what they’ve done, again and again. She wants him to suffer and burn, to feel what true loss really is, and—

“Good morning!” Squirrel says, his cheery voice cutting through her rage.

The Monk looks away from her, something like a smile curling in the corners of his mouth.

“You snore like a bear,” he tells the boy.

His ease with Squirrel only serves to further enrage Nimue. How dare he pretend like he isn’t the one to uproot the boy from their home, why the two of them were now orphaned, Gawain dead, the Fey on the run . . . 

“Nimue, are you all right?” Squirrel asks around a ginormous yawn.

The Monk looks back at her. She sees the understanding sprint across his expressions that she is not wracked with pain but anger.

“I’m going to bring Goliath to the river,” he says, his eyes still on hers.

Squirrel springs up. “I’m thirsty, too!”

“No, you should . . . stay here,” the Monk tells him, his gaze flickering over to the boy. “I’ll bring water back.”

“Fine,” the boy sighs and flops back down onto the cloak she now recognizes as the Monk’s.

Once the man is out of earshot, which takes some time with how slow he walks, Nimue sits up. Her chest aches but she can feel herself healing.

“How can you trust  _ him _ ?” she hisses at Squirrel.

“I don’t  _ trust _ him,” he scoffs.

“Yes, you do,” she says. “I see the way you follow him; the way he can tell you what to do. He’s not a Fey knight, Squirrel.”

“But he is Fey.”

“I don’t care!”

Fernmarks ripple along the skin of her jaw, crawling up her cheekbones. The whispers of the Hidden slide into her ears, lending her their power without question and she trembles under the swelling amount of magic pulsing through her body.

“Nimue . . .” Squirrel sounds scared.

That’s what catches her—his fear. She closes her eyes and breathes shallow, shoving the Hidden away. It’s not Squirrel’s fault that the Weeping Monk is here. He’s still just a boy and she’s still a girl, trembling with powers she doesn’t understand.

“Sorry.” Her voice breaks. She opens her eyes. “I—I just don’t understand. Why? Why  _ him _ ?”

He shrugs, not meeting her gaze. “He saved me, Nimue.”

“But he’s slaughtered  _ hundreds _ of our people!” she shouts, not caring how she might be frightening Squirrel or how much her body aches. Her anger and her grief is stronger than anything else. “He’s not one of us and he never will be.”

“Yeah, well you weren’t there!” Squirrels gets to his feet. “And you’ve killed hundreds of Paladins too, so what’s the difference? You’re both killers! At least Lancelot doesn’t shout at me.”

Nimue frowns, the unknown name giving her pause.

“That’s his name,” Squirrel continues. “Yeah, we don’t have homes anymore, Nimue. But at least we’re not dead and it’s because he’s helped us. So, if you want to try and kill him again, well”—he grimaces, searching for the right word—“don’t.”

And then he sprints towards the river, leaving Nimue to sit in confusion and misery.

➼ ➼ ➼

He’s only been at the river for a few minutes when Percival crashes down the bank to end up breathless and scowling at the edge of the water. He squats down, furiously splashes water over his face, and then looks up at Lancelot.

“Nimue hates you,” he says. Lancelot stares at him long enough until the boy realizes this isn’t fresh news. “She could  _ kill _ you.”

“She could if she wants to,” he replies. “I’m not going to fight her. Or you.”

“Something’s different,” the boy blurts. He rises up from the river, wiping his face on his sleeve. “With Nimue, I mean.”

“She did almost die and”—Lancelot grimaces faintly—“I’m here.”

It’s that particular moment when the birds decide it’s light enough to wake up. Several chirps sound through the woods, followed by a trilling whistle answered by a cheery, burbling song.

Goliath lifts his head from the river to huff at the trees and Percival grins.

“Mornings are nice,” he states.

Lancelot doesn’t reply. He’s never had much time to soak in the beginning of a day like this, but now . . . now it feels like a memory. Like he’s done this before, listening to birds as the gray lifts into a bold, golden dawn.

“Are you good now?” Percival asks.

“I don’t know.”

The boy shrugs. “Well, I think you are. You killed all those black-robed bastards, saved me, and you’re not even angry with Nimue for trying to bury you! I’d be angry at that.”

“I don’t think,” Lancelot says cautiously, “those things make me good, Percival.”

“Maybe if you apologized really, really nicely, she wouldn’t be so angry.”

“An apology?”

“Yeah, that’s what my mum . . .” Percival stops. Sniffs. Picks up a rock and chucks it into the river. “That’s what I was always told to do after I did something. And I did a lot of things! Mostly stealing.”

The boy continues with his stories, carefree and hateless. Lancelot cannot stop the smile from growing as he listens, a hand resting against Goliath’s neck and sunlight starting to waft through the tree branches.

He will be forever haunted by his past. But maybe . . . maybe one step in the right direction is all it takes to be good. Maybe he won’t be such a monster if he keeps walking on this path . . .

_ This is what you were made for, boy _ , Father Carden says.  _ You’re a monster but you’re working for God. Keep on His path, keep evil from His doors, and maybe He will pardon your birthright. _

It is always a  _ maybe _ —never something sure, never something he could truly hold on to. And that’s what he aches for, what he kept fighting, kept killing, kept  _ on _ . . . for that sense of belonging.

But the ways he looked for it, well, Lancelot is sure he’ll never belong anywhere but hell.

➼ ➼ ➼

Sister Iris burns with hellfire.

She wakes up screaming, her voice scraping against her throat. Her entire body is in agony, lightning bolts still striking up and down her bones, blistering over her skin. Her eyes are gummed shut but she forces them open, blinking onto a blurred, dim unknown.

“Peace, my child,” a voice says, authoritative but soothing. “You will live, praise be to God.”

“Father?” Iris croaks.

“Father Carden is dead,” the voice responds evenly, “and the Lord worked His vengeance through you.”

Iris closes her eyes, her jaw clenched against the pain.

She survived the devil magic which means God protected her; He still has a plan for her. She killed the witch and God smiled on it . . . so why did He let her burn?

When Sister Iris opens her eyes again, she sees who stands at her side—the Pope himself!

He is neither gilded nor glorified as she had always imagined him to be. Instead, he is dressed in simple black robes with a gold crucifix about his neck. And his pate is bare in humility . . . in front of  _ her _ !

“Your Excellence . . .” she breathes, heart quickening.

“Shh, shh, do not trouble yourself for me,” his Most Holiness says, raising a hand in benevolence. “Rest, my child. You have done good things in God’s name and struck a powerful blow at the heart of wickedness.”

“I did?” Iris murmurs, her eyes still fixed on him.

His Excellence smiles—no, he  _ beams _ upon her, cutting through the pain and lighting her heart.

“Yes,” he says. “You did. Oh . . . child, do not weep!”

Only after he speaks does she feel the tears rolling down her burning face. She blinks, lashes wet and vision blurring again, but the tears still continue.

“I did not think I had the strength to do it,” Sister Iris confesses in a broken whisper. “I prayed so much, your Holiness.”

She prayed and she struggled and she punished her stupid, mortal body for its hesitation again and again. Only through pain did she finally receive clarity . . .

Maybe that is why God chose to burn her. He wants her to be wholly focused upon Him and His purpose for her.

“God is strong where we are weak,” the Pope tells her. “It was His power flowing through you that brought down the witch.”

Sister Iris doesn’t know how she can feel so happy and tortured and exultant and terrified at the same time. She has never doubted in the Lord . . . but it is so difficult to feel His presence right now. Even with His most trusted servant at her bedside. Even with the encouragement and comfort spoken to her in words of truth.

Because of the fire still raging inside her.

“Praise the Lord,” she manages in a trembling voice.

But she still feels the crack of electricity and the searing agony when it hit her. She remembers being thrown against the rocks from the force of it. She remembers, in the split second before the dark of unconsciousness took her, her only thought was  _ why. _

And when the Pope leaves and healers have tended to her wounds, telling her yet again to rest . . . Sister Iris aches more with curiosity than pain.

There are no mirrors in the tent. Her bones protest and the burns scrape against her bandages, whimpers of pain and frustration slipping past her lips as she looks for something with a reflection.

And then she finds the sword, forgotten in a dark corner.

Sister Iris brings it to the lantern by her cot. She turns the wick up, casting brightness and darker shadows equally throughout the tent. She draws the blade, squints at her warped reflection—

—and shrieks.

She is bandaged and bruised, yes, but her face . . .

Angry, bubbled marks sprawl across the left side, lifting half of her mouth up in a permanent, twisted expression that looks devilish in the flicking lamplight. Her teeth glint and her eyes are reddened, wide with horror as she stares at what she’s become.

God didn’t save her—not really. He let those demons turn her into a monster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> firstly, I apologize for how long this chapter took!! I'm still not entirely happy with it, but it's been edited several times and I guess it's the best it's going to be for now? Anyways, here you go ^^  
> and yes I amped up Sister Iris' burn scars mwhahaha 
> 
> again, I'm super curious where y'all think I'm taking this *wiggles eyebrows*
> 
> also, **I've got my arc planned!!!** —pt 1 which we're in now is these characters, pt2 is Arthur & Co, and then pt3 is _we're all in this togetherrrrr_ —so I'm really excited to work on all of that ^^
> 
> Finally: have a Pinterest mood board for this series  
> https://www.pinterest.com/joonfired/cursed-aesthetics/


	5. — the maiden and crone —

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uther wonders and Morgana makes a horrifying discovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another ( slightly shorter ) Morgana/Uther/Merlin centric chapter because their plot arc is VERY important to this story . . .
> 
> Warning: high angst alert

Uther wakes up  _ miserable _ .

His head aches and his mouth is thick with the taste of vomit. He groans, his stomach twisting uncomfortably as he rolls to the side—

—and bumps against a body.

The body moves and shrieks . . . which makes him shriek as well. It’s too dark to see who it is or even  _ where _ he is. He peers uselessly into the darkness, feeling awful and terrified and a little bit certain this is a dream.

“Who goes there?” he demands in a trembling whisper.

“. . . Uther?”

“Morgana?”

“One moment,” she says, her voice oddly rough.

There is the sound of more fumbling, the mattress dips as she moves away, and then Uther hears the blessed rasp of a match before dim, fluttering light is cast over their situation as Morgana leans away from the side table and newly-lit candle.

She blinks sleepily at him, her dinner gown crumpled and dark circles heavy beneath her eyes. Her hair is messy and a tangled halo but instead of looking wild because of it, she looks . . . scared.

“Did you sleep?” he asks instinctively.

He wonders where the instinct came from. He wonders  _ why _ it appeared. But he knows the instinct is right because her features crumple, turning her from the powerful sorceress he knew into something smaller and vulnerable.

“No,” she gasps. “I dreamed.”

“Well,” he starts, “dreams do happen . . .”

“No, you don’t understand!” She scoots towards him and he sees so much terror in her eyes. “I  _ hear _ deaths as they happen. I couldn’t sleep, didn’t feel like eating, didn’t even feel human!”

“Are you?” he asks hesitantly. “Human, I mean.”

She doesn’t answer for several moments and that’s when Uther realizes that he is also vulnerable. He is halfway drunk and miserable, but he finds it easier to speak to her as himself and not the king. He speaks as Uther, not the voice of the kingdom.

And . . . he likes that.

“I don’t think so,” Morgana whispers.

“I see,” he says, because what else is there to say?

“What are we doing?” she asks. “Here? At the dinner? With our alliance?”

“I assume you also mean the fact that we ended up in the same bed after our”—he coughs politely and immediately regrets it as the vibrations further his headache—“frivol.”

Morgana snorts. “Yes,  _ that _ is surprising.”

“A moment . . .” He narrows his eyes at her. “You  _ weren’t _ interested in us? Not the slightest? I mean”—he grimaces slightly—“in my . . .”

_ “Gods _ , no!” she drawls. “Not a bit. I haven’t”—she bites at her lip—“I’ve never really seen  _ men _ in that way.”

“Ah,” he says. And then, “ _ Ah _ . So, you don’t even thi—”

“No, I doubt it.”

He nods. “Good.”

Morgana sighs and flops back onto the mattress, staring up at the ceiling. He slowly lowers himself next to her a few moments later, his nausea fading as he relaxes.

“This will be a funny thing to explain,” he murmurs. “Us . . . in bed.”

“Not really. We were very tired.”

Uther huffs a laugh at that, oddly content. He  _ is _ tired. And it is nice to talk like this—open, sleepy companionship. Perhaps he would find something like this later, if he ever wants to.

➼ ➼ ➼

The king in her bed falls back asleep but Morgana doesn’t.

She lies next to Uther, listening to him breathe and trying not to remember Celia—the one she did so much more with than sharing a mattress. The one who had her heart and who was then taken from her.

Morgana sits up suddenly, scrubbing at her mouth to try and erase the memory of spider legs crawling past her lips. Whispers tug at her again and this time . . . this time she listens.

She slides out of bed and  _ walks _ , finding herself on the edge of the sea, pulled by a chorus of deaths. The veil appears over her eyes, fluttering in the sea breeze as she bends over the body of a raider gasping for breath—

—and is shoved aside.

“Begone, little one,” a voice hisses. “These are mine to collect.”

Morgana lifts her gaze to see a female-shaped giant towering over her. A crown of blackened, twisted bones rises from her forehead and her sunken eyes are rimmed with black ash. Something shudders through her as those empty eyes touch hers with a sense of similarity.

“I . . . am ready,” the raider coughs wetly, reaching for the giantess. “I am ready to see the halls of Valhalla.”

“Oh, poor thing,” the figure croons, stroking along the raider’s struggling chest. “You will never grace those halls.”

Her hand crunches through the raider’s torso. Her nails protrude through the armor on his back, shiny with blood as she lifts him by his spine.

“Stay away from what is mine,” the strange goddess warns Morgana, who stands frozen in horror.

And then she is gone and the raider stays . . . but the body is  _ empty _ .

Morgana turns and runs from the battleground, nausea churning in her stomach. She doesn’t know where she is, black cliffs reaching up on one side and the angry ocean on the other, and she needs to go back to the castle. She tries to  _ walk _ , but the energy keeps slipping out of her control, just out of reach . . .

Until it doesn’t.

She  _ steps _ away and against Merlin, the two of them stumbling back against the halls of Uther’s castle.

“Arawyn’s horns!” the magician curses, shoving her away. “What the bloody hell are you doing?”

Morgana cannot reply. She leans against the wall, gasping for air and clarity.

“There . . . there were deaths,” she starts.

“Yes, you’ll be seeing a lot of those,” he drawls, taking a long pull from a wineskin. When she doesn’t continue, he snaps, “You and His Royal High-ass inspired me.”

But Morgana doesn’t feel anything from the wine she drowned herself in just hours ago. The veil still hangs over her features and she rips it away with a growling sob before sinking to the ground. She buries her face in her hands, trying to compose herself.

She doesn’t want to be this weak in front of Merlin. She doesn’t need rescuing, not from  _ him _ . . . but she does need answers. And he is only thing old enough to have them.

“There was another one,” she finally says. “Another”—she gestures at herself and then at the crumpled veil—“of whatever I am. Except, it . . . she . . . was different. She was bigger and it was raiders I was drawn to but she said they were hers, and she told me to leave, and then . . . and then . . . ”

She breaks off, her breath caught tight in her chest.

“Ah.” Merlin says. “That would be Hel. Death has many different faces, but hers is one of the worst.”

So that’s what Morgana is then—Death.

“You mean, there’s more?” she asks. “I’m not the only one?”

“Yes, there’s more,” Merlin shrugs. “Eventually, you’ll be able to go wherever you please, as Hel obviously did, coming for those who came from her land. But most gods don’t appreciate such an intrusion. And, just like you came to be”—he grins sharply—“there are ways to end a Death.”

A chill shivers up Morgana’s spine as she remembers plunging the Sword into the Widow’s maw . . . and then receiving her grim mantle as the price. 

“Will any others come here?” she asks, her composure returning in shaky scraps.

“If you let them. They might even try to steal from you, but”—Merlin shrugs again and salutes her with his wineskin as he starts to walk away—“I wouldn’t worry about that.”

“Wouldn’t worry . . . ” Morgana repeats breathlessly as he leaves.

The whispers start up again, but she curls up and presses her hands against her ears.

“I don’t want this,” she mutters, jaw tight. “I don’t, I don’t, I don’t,  _ I don’t _ —”

“My love?”

Morgana sits up, looking around in sudden darkness. She can feel the castle floor beneath her and smell the lingering stench of wine and old sweat that Merlin left behind, but she is also . . .  _ not  _ there.

Celia appears in front of her, wide-eyed and burnt and . . . dead.

“My love,” she says, reaching for her.

“Stay away from me!” Morgana yelps, scrambling to her feet.

“But Morgana . . . it’s me.”

“I don’t know,” she says, tears stinging at her eyes, “if that’s true anymore, Celia. You”—her voice cracks—“you  _ died _ .”

Celia smiles, gentle and strange. “As did you, my love.”

“What?” Morgana shakes her head. “No, I didn’t.”

But as she thinks back to what happened after she stabbed the Sword through the Widow, and then her recent sleeplessness, which then led into the strange, terrifying dreams . . .

“See,” Celia says, taking a step closer, “we’re the same now, you and I. We can be together . . . forever.”

And Morgana  _ wants _ to believe her—she truly does. But she remembers the unfamiliar horror on Celia’s face as she realized what had happened, what she had become in the Widow’s end. The blame she threw at Morgana.

The  _ anger _ .

“It’s you,” she murmurs, realization dawning on her.

“Of course it’s me,” Celia says softly.

But Morgana is already shaking her head, stepping away from the form of the girl she had loved. She bumps against something and feels the castle wall under her fingertips, damp and cold and grounding.

“You’re not Celia,” she says. “You’re  _ her _ —the Cailleach.”

As soon as the words leave her tongue, Celia’s face shifts. The gentility is erased by a too-wide smile that shows too-much and too-sharp teeth.

“Clever, clever girl,” the thing wearing Celia’s skin hisses. “Such a pretty, clever girl. You could have been mine. You could have been so much more than a pathetic Death bound by souls and duties.”

“You tricked me.”

The Celia-shaped thing tosses her head back with a scornful laugh. “So?”

“Go away,” Morgana tells it numbly.

She can’t look at it anymore; she can’t stand the memory of Celia being used like this against her. She wants to remember her love as she was in life—sweet, thoughtful, and a little bit too timid but so, so kind because of it. She wants to think of Celia’s face with the memories of kisses and laughter instead of . . .  _ this _ .

But it laughs at her in Celia’s voice and she  _ hates _ it.

“I said,” she repeats. “Go away.”

“What are you going to do?” it taunts. It lifts its hands, running them down Celia’s body with an ugly leer. “Will you destroy the body of the girl you loved so much that you ran away from her?”

“I didn’t run away . . . ”

“Oh, but you did.” The twisted expression disappears and it seems like Celia stands in front of her again with the same mournful look she had when Morgana left the nunnery for the Fey. “You left me, Morgana. You left me to burn and die  _ alone _ .”

Morgana is sobbing now, shaking with unstoppable tremors. The creature presses forward in her weakness, anger burning dark in Celia’s eyes.

“You never loved me. You only cared about the Fey and then Nimue, even your stupid brother.”

“Stop it,” she begs. “Leave me alone.”

“You betrayed me, Morgana,” it says. “I was going to give you  _ everything _ . . . and then you threw it away.”

“I didn’t ask for any of this!” Morgana wails.

When she erupts, in the storm of her grief and terror and guilt, power blossoms. It comes from somewhere deep and tangled and fierce.

It crashes into the thing masquerading as Celia and obliterates it into thousands upon thousands of spiders that scurry away into the darkness. Morgana shakes with sobs as she stands up, but she does not waver. She keeps pushing her power onto it until the darkness fades away—

—and she is alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So . . . thoughts?? Guesses? Ideas???? Feedback???
> 
> Nimulot break-through coming up in the next chapter!! It will all start really rolling from now on, I promise ❤️
> 
> Also, I need to talk about Morgana's sexuality: I'm not going to say much because I'm still working it out, but in this fic she ain't a lesbian—she's more demipansexual. She's got a lot of shit to sort through, I'm still not sure if I've got a pairing for her or not, and I am doing my utmost to handle that very important part of her with tact and understanding. I am not erasing her as a LGBT character in ANY WAY bc diversity is still very much lacking from media and I LOVED how Morgana's character was portrayed in the show . . . but this is a reinvention in a lot of ways for these characters. Or a reinterpretation. But more on it later, I just didn't want to anger or upset some people AND thoughts are always appreciated so please hmu here or @joonfired on Twitter ^^

**Author's Note:**

> forgive me for the Blank of Blank and Blank title but look cliches for a cliche show amiright?? 😆😆


End file.
